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L-F-J -

some good advice here.. but i'm kinda with strawberry on the drinking suggestion, insofar as
needing another method. because i never drink. but stupid is as stupid does.

i'm not really afraid of making mistakes. otherwise i wouldnt bother trying to learn something
new. especially bloody chinese! i have noticed however, that when i slow down my speech its
usually a little more fluid. also, it seems like i'm not thinking of the words i need and they
just come up. which is good, but thats not the problem i have with speaking at a normal rate. the
words come up, they just dont come out. or if they do there's about a second in between each word
or phrase before the next comes out. and i'm usually certain of the grammar and tones.

actually the problem comes up mostly between phrases or sentence fragments. there's a slight pause
between each part of the sentence. though i can usually say those parts fairly easily and fluidly.
but its in linking them together that i stumble. and usually by the end of the sentence it
degenerates into every single character be a stutter....

so it may be that i can speak certain ideas or phrases but have a problem mixing them to make new
ideas and speak it as naturally. perhaps i need to practice speaking to myself by mixing and
matching different phrases and ideas to get accustomed to new combinations coming out of my mouth?



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赫杰 -



Quote:

i have noticed however, that when i slow down my speech its usually a little more fluid. also, it
seems like i'm not thinking of the words i need and they just come up. which is good, but thats
not the problem i have with speaking at a normal rate. the words come up, they just dont come out.
or if they do there's about a second in between each word or phrase before the next comes out. and
i'm usually certain of the grammar and tones.

actually the problem comes up mostly between phrases or sentence fragments. there's a slight pause
between each part of the sentence. though i can usually say those parts fairly easily and fluidly.
but its in linking them together that i stumble. and usually by the end of the sentence it
degenerates into every single character be a stutter....

I see, interesting, I still have the same problems sometimes, though not as bad as in the past.
Allow me to clarify, perhaps you are indeed just being too hard on yourself (haha not such a bad
thing IMO), but take this example: one day your 心情 is noticably 郁闷，so your friend (or
you just doing 自言自语) asks you: 嘿！你怎么了？so you say something like (and I am
going to expand a bit here because I think its a good overall practice habit in speaking and in
writing,,, and will also help me clarify your problem)
哎，心情好郁闷呢，因为对于我自己来讲，在大多数情况下，我讲话总有些�
��吃、断断续续，就像一个结巴子似的，，，真不知道该怎么样才能解决这��
�问题。。。

So like in that sentence, would you pause after each character? or just after each word like
心情。。。好。。。郁闷呢。。。or do you pause at the comma marks (which i see
nothing wrong with if you are...)? personally i often say things like this 因为(pause think -
then speak the rest)，在(pause think - then speak the rest)，and so on, like I will pause at
the beginning to think....but sometimes I will be like 靠，我的心情呢(pause think and then
say something)....and other times when speaking is bad for some reason I will be like
我的那个。。。那个。。心情呢，，，and yet some other times I will just flat out
脱口而出, say all that and f*** the commas. All this used to drive me crazy and then I posted
a message here about just how fast or slow should chinese be generally spoken, and got the best
advice...just dont think about it. Truthfully, my english sucks like that too sometimes, so after
realizing this I stopped being so freaking hard on myself, which I hope your not doing, but it is
good to an extent I suppose...

So indeed perhaps you are just thinking too much, just let it flow, I think you should keep
speaking slowly and fluidly, like you said, the fact that words come up without you having to
think so much is not good...its GREAT, everything will speed up with time and repetition, but you
also dont want to get into the habit of saying the same shite over and over again with absolutely
no thought in your words and allowing them to become stale and boring to listen to, but that
problem will come later, and another thing, dont get too hung up on grammar, yes you can run a
mental check of something like (is that what they usually say? does this really sound right?) but
just like when reading a book, mark it down and come back to it later, i think you should always
try to do your best to first completely finish expressing your thoughts...



Quote:

so it may be that i can speak certain ideas or phrases but have a problem mixing them to make new
ideas and speak it as naturally. perhaps i need to practice speaking to myself by mixing and
matching different phrases and ideas to get accustomed to new combinations coming out of my mouth?

yes, talking to yourself is a great practice in my opinion and has helped me a lot, it even has
some perks over talking with people, in that when you talk to actual people you might fall into
the nasty habit (I do this too freaking often as it is in my nature ><) of just listening to the
person you are talking to and saying a few quick phrases and allow them to do all the talking,,,
however, talking with real people is definately the best thing because among many reasons, with
the obvious one being that it is the most natural and basic method of conversation, when talking
to someone you are not only looking to express yourself, but to give the listener an impression of
who you are (or who you want to be percieved as), so maybe you will joke more in your discussions,
or say stupid random things (i do this a lot), or say something to piss the listener off just
because you are mad, you know? this kinds of things, these are all factors that are practically
non-existent when doing the 自言自语, because these feelings are simply not there, so you have
to try to imagine you are talking to that person, and you have those feeling, but this is
difficult for me...talking to a mirror seems to help somewhat, another pretty obvious but
important aspect of talking to someone are the different points of view through commenting and
questioning they provide, which will usually envoke feelings that by just doing the 自言自语
is unable to produce...

hope this helps,

J










nubix -

HJ thanks for both your replies, I have found your insights to be very useful.










chenpv -



Quote:

Then the person has to get another person to correctly guess the word as quickly as possible
without saying those three words. Such as, “If you want to travel from New York to London, the
fastest way to travel is in a __________”

My knee-jerk answer to that was TRAIN.... OMG, I do have a problem...

As for the argument over the beer, I do encourage people to try this method if they are fond of
drinking some. Not to do it on purpose, but whenever there is a party or celebration where beer or
alcohol is served, take a few sips, let it in, I am quite sure you will sense the difference while
talking in Chinese or whatever language. Also bear in mind that too much drink cause bathroom
emergencies, which are a distracting factor while conversation.










L-F-J -

赫杰 - when i'm reading something i can speak it as fast and as fluid as i want but when i'm set
free and rely on my own mind for the ideas, that changes.

with the example sentence you gave i'd usually have a pause at each comma and as i go along
speaking, at each comma i'll almost forget what i'm trying to say. and by the end if the section
is long i'll start to pause at almost every word while i'm trying to spit it out.

this doesnt happen all the time. sometimes i can get it out rather smoothly. so i dont know why i
cant do that all the time. if i could only speak freely the way i read chinese it'd be cool.

one problem i noticed is that when i write i can get out all of my ideas and have the correct
grammar and all. but when i'm speaking, again, its like i forgot how to express my ideas like i
dont know enough words or the grammar isnt there for me. but i know it is because i can sit and
write it all out no problem. its just not there for me when i speak though...










赫杰 -

Hello again,



Quote:

with the example sentence you gave i'd usually have a pause at each comma and as i go along
speaking, at each comma i'll almost forget what i'm trying to say. and by the end if the section
is long i'll start to pause at almost every word while i'm trying to spit it out.

I see, I think our problems are very similar, with only a little difference. I also feel my
writing is much much better than my 口语, but during speaking I usually won't forget what I'm
trying to say, I just have trouble coming up with feelings and opinions on matters in the first
place as I am (a) very stupid and find it hard to find something intelligent to say about anything
so usually just result to acting silly and making odd random comments about things and (b) am not
an opinionated person by nature,,,I am like a computer with a very slow processor, I can get
things done, I just need time to work it all out, I probably should upgrade but anyway....

Interesting, but l think I have some more suggestions that may help you as they helped me when
this similar (but not exactly alike) problem happened to me in the beginning of last semester,
where my writing abilities were way freaking better than my spoken, now it is much better, so
besides what I wrote in the above posts also keep these things in mind:

You are forgetting what to say towards the end while trying to say longer sentences, i.e. perhaps
trying to convey more abstract or complicated feelings, ideas, processes, telling of stories etc,
this is because what you are trying to say is multi-layered and instead of focusing on one layer
at a time you are trying to say everything...last year I had a roommate from Korea, his Chinese
listening was so freaking good but his speaking was quite peculiar, that is he could communicate
with anyone about pretty much anything with very very few words, his response was so quick but I
don’t think I ever heard him speak one complete sentence...ever, but he could understand the
news, lol. What I learned from this is everything we say has a main point, and like my Korean
friend, if we are able to just find this main point, say it, then everything will be okay, we can
be at least understood, the key is to first find them (my problem), and then of course while
speaking around it using 复句 and various 句式 and 表达形式 to remember what your point
exactly was (your problem).

So I think you should get used to exploring your feelings in Chinese (自言自语 or whatever),
and structurizing your Chinese naturally without having to think about it, the main thing you need
to keep in mind is that main idea you are trying to convey, so perhaps you are having problems for
two reasons - you are trying to convey/think about too many main ideas at one time, and/or you are
having problem structurizing around these main ideas, due to the structures being used not being
familiar and natural. To allow these structures to feel natural you need to use them all the time,
once they feel natural, you can simply focus on just thinking about remembering your main ideas,
describing them with pretty figures of speech 起到一个修辞效果 and 加点感情色彩, so
for instance:

someone asks you 你为什么要学习汉语？and if you are like me, then you will feel
百感交集, 不知所措, there is a lot to talk about indeed, where does one begin? Now if I
don’t like the person or just don’t feeling talking for some reason I might say something
short like 因为。。。我觉得汉语是一种乐趣, or even better
不为什么，没有理由。I imagine you saying something like this is not a problem at all,
but now lets say you want to expand, or you are in a talkative mood:
begin,

(note to self: 乐趣)(begin thinking of a structure)
因为。。。(structure found 不仅仅，而且) (note:
除了一种乐趣外，我还觉得汉语是什么东西？)
就我来说。。。(found: 汉语也是一种挑战自己的方法)(think for next aspect, you
know its there somewhere)
学习汉语不仅仅是一种挑战自己的方法，(next main idea found: the difficulty
factor)(structure?)
而且还是一种乐趣(structure found 虽然 但是)
那么。。。。(how difficult? supposedly most difficult in world)
从学习汉语的难度方面来讲。。。(then how to express the level for you?)
虽然有的人认为中文是世界上最难学的语言， (found: 易如反掌)
但是我并不这样认为。(look for new idea...where are you??~~)
不过。。。(still looking - wtf should i say now??)
反过来说，(found: must complete this crazy language) (structure?)
我也不能说学习汉语是一件易如反掌的事情。(structure found 就算 也)
哎，不论怎么样。。。(express level) (what should i freaking say next? im hungry...)
就算汉语真的是世界上最难学的语言，(continue with expression of level 再 也)
我也得尽自己最大的努力去把它学好，(continue with expression of level)
再难也一定要继续学习下去，（found: 尽力而为...is that a puppy?）
尽力而为。。。(heh what a cute puppy...o shit, what do i say now? ummm)
那个。。。(成语？any more?)
全力以赴。。。(any more? no? shit,,,)
那个。。。(不妨换个话题算了吧)
嘿，你喜不喜欢猫？

I know this is a lot to think about while talking but this is basically my thought process while
speaking, otherwise, I will just say as little as possible, as is my nature. Now, in the
beginning, thinking like this might be slow, and weird but 熟能生巧， I remember last
semester spending so many hours a day talking to myself (I have obviously gone insane since then,
which is only a minor side effect) I actually got sick I did it so much, hurt to talk for about
three days, but it structured my Chinese and gave me confidence to express myself more deeply
about many topics. It's like you will hear a topic and you immediately get a blue print in your
head of
对。。。来讲，从。。。方面来看，觉得。。。甚至，虽然。。。但，就算�
��。。也，何必呢, and then the relative main 主意's and 大意's and then the rest will
just write itself...but then you may get into a problem of saying the same thing over and over
again...which is not good either to a point, right? So you gotta do your best to mix it all up and
always use what you learn.

Again, for you to remember what your point is, you got to feel natural about the expressions being
used to surround your main ideas, this will allow you to talk about one thing and think about
something else at the same time, which will prepare you to speak more continually, and this can be
done simply through repetition, practice, and also 背ing things like 成语 习惯用语 and
常见的词组 as well as 模仿ing various programs I think helps a lot too. So what your
pausing at words and speaking slowly? What? You want to sound like a Chinese when you speak
Chinese or something after just a few years of study? haha, just keep at it (I am telling myself
this at the same), improving one's 表达能力 is something that can always be improved, no
matter what level you are at I think. Any kind of study of Chinese is a good kind, even if its
循序渐进式的那种



Quote:

this doesnt happen all the time. sometimes i can get it out rather smoothly. so i don’t know why
i cant do that all the time. if i could only speak freely the way i read Chinese it'd be cool.

yeah, i hear ya, hell, i wish i could speak English smoothly ALL the time, but that's not gonna
happen, so I'm not placing that much hope on Chinese, but like you I'll keep doing my best
whatever the case.

apologies, I wrote a lot again, hope some of this helps

J












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